National Affairs: The Safety Catch On the Deterrent

THE date was Aug. 26, 1957. The announcement from the Kremlin was heavy
with meaning to the free world's defenses. The Soviet Union had
test-fired its first intercontinental ballistic missile, and as days
went by, Russia's Khrushchev pushed a new form of missile diplomacy,
pouring it into every cocked ear at every diplomatic coop that Europe
might become "a veritable cemetery," and that the U.S. was "just as
vulnerable."

Poised around the U.S.S.R.'s 37,500-mile perimeter, the U.S. Air Force's
Strategic Air Command, a 2,000-bomber force capable in a single sortie
of hitting the U.S.S.R. with 2,000 times the total explosive power...